I just finished my fifth 100+ mile week in a row but got to have two easy days the past two days so I could run the all comer's 5k today. We thought we might be able to get my PR since I was so close last time but I was a little off, but still ran 18:59, my fifth best ever. I am fairly certain I did run 18:59 and not 19:00 like Jim thought because I looked at the clock right when I was flying through the finish line and I swear that's what it said, not just what I wanted it to say.  I'm worried though because I lost 10 seconds somewhere in the last few laps. I was quite surprised when I came around the last time and I was going to barely break it if at all, I thought I had been doing about the same as last time from. Was I delusional and saw the time not as it was or did I really just loose that many seconds in only a few laps? I was probably delusional! Right! 
I have a new teammate to run with sometimes, Jessica, who just moved here with her family from Oklahoma. Her family is all into running, her dad just having completed a 100 mile race and they all turned out to the all comer's meet. Her younger brother and sister doing throwing, jumping and shorter running events and her dad and her also running the 5k. It's fun to have someone to run with sometimes even if she runs a lot less than the 20 and 30 mile runs I have to do. Someday...

Abandoned in Bellingham

I moved to Bellingham because my coach lives up here, I came to run, train, no other reason. I had to come up here because I was already 24 and getting old fast but not getting fast old. So what does my coach do as soon as I get here? He moves to freaking Iowa!!!! (and okay I realize that it has been a little over a year since I moved here but I think he had been planning it that long) I have been abandoned in Bellingham.
He went away to be a director of track and field operations at the University of Iowa where they have more than seven girls who can run 16:45 for the 5k. Sure I get it, I would leave me too, I could never run 16:45 for a 5k if you shoved a rocket up my butt. Now Joel will say, "Yeah, well you got fourth in the country in the 50k, they couldn't do that, stop being so insecure, blah blah blah." Yeah well everyone only cares about the 5k! Really you're supposed to be secure at the old age of twenty five but I don't feel twenty five, I feel exactly like I did when I was twenty and I still get lots of acne so obviously my body doesn't think I'm 25 either.
Joel will come back in May to coach us again but that seems like a really long time away. How many miles is that? Like 3000? 3000 is a lot of miles to run all alone. It is easy for me to run sometimes. Sometimes I can run for 30 miles and not feel so tired. I ran a 26 mile run a few weeks ago and then went to work, it was no big deal. I wish other things were easy for me though like making friends. Why is it easier to run thirty miles than find someone to hang out with after? I think I am probably the only person in the world like that.
Since I dont have anyone to go with I've been running with audiobooks. Over the last couple weeks I finished Uglies, Pretties and Specials- about 33 hours of books I think. Of course I ran 101 miles in one week, then a 105, a 100 and this past week another 101. Pretties helped me through a 20 mile run that might have been an eleven otherwise. I told myself I couldn't listen to it unless I was running so I kept running until I had finished it.  I've done two 30 mile runs, one 26,  three 20s, a 17, a 16, and had two slow workouts that were supposed to be a lot faster. Joel decides what my times should be over the phone now. Joel holds me in higher esteem than I have for myself, almost as if he does think I am as important as a girl who runs a 16:45. I want to prove him right but I get frustrated when i am tired and can't. It's frustrating being by yourself, being tired all the time, knowing that your coach is somewhere else coaching girls that you want to be like but can't. Even if deep down you know that you are good at different things and your coach does like you and think you are a good runner it's hard to remember in the midst of a 105 mile week, running a 12:45 3k that was supposed to be an 11:40 and feeling like your legs fell off miles ago. You want someone to yell at but all you have is yourself.

Not so long anymore

I got a break this week. Instead of running a 20 and 30 mile like last week I only had to do 17 and 26. That meant I started out on my usual route this morning, after sleeping in for an extra thirty four minutes, and got to skip parts of it, like the loop around Cornwall park and the usual brief visit to Galbraith Mountain. I've changed a lot in a couple weeks, like for instance running for three hours and forty minutes just doesn't even seem that long, it's like I'm taking a shortcut. And my two hours twenty three minute run on Tuesday? Dang, should I even go anywhere? It'll be over like in no time, maybe I should just run circles in my back yard. It is a long time if you think about it, but so people who think so have no problem working eight or nine hours a day, five days in a row at jobs they often hate. I think it is much better running for four hours one day a week, and two the rest of the days, than working eight hours a day, five days in a row! And most people I meet think you're crazy if you want to work any less. If that's normal then I'm just fine being crazy, thank you.
When I run on a Lakeway I pass a street called Raymond and then I turn the corner, go up Yew street (up and up and up) and pass Alvarado street. Dang, am I the only one who remembers the Secret World of Alex Mack? Probably. Who else remembers the 90s? I ran back then but back then running two miles was a real long ways, no joke. See it's all in how you perceive things. Last year I dropped out of my first marathon because I couldn't imagine being able to run that far. And now I do a marathon or longer every week and it doesn't seem like a big deal. That's why I wanted to do this. So when I go run the 50k it won't be that big a deal. Just another Saturday- weee! this time I have company!

I'm tired now, it's mile 1:(

So much for all that bragging about not being tired- today was the sorriest, draggiest two hours and fifty two minutes ever.
Yesterday I went to Cornwall park to run my workout by myself- something I hate! I hate it because I am a weird person who thinks that everyone in the park will look at me and smoke and jump in front of me- which they would not do if I had a teammate or a coach! Ahh, screw that next time I'll just bring my cat, Sneakers. My workout was 2 times the 3k, 2k, 1k and I was supposed to run around 12:18 for the 3ks, 8 minutes for the 2ks and 3:50 for the 1ks. The loop I run them at Cornwall is 1k and it goes by way faster than the track to me and always will no matter what Joel says- "it's the same distance!" yeah, yeah, yeah, in reality, but not to me. Running the 3k at the park means only having to do 3 laps instead of 7 and 1/2. I ran the whole workout faster than my goal times, probably because I couldn't wait to get done with it. My times were 12:13, 7:59, 3:44, 12:03, 7:50, 3:41. That was no problem. I went home and despite the horrible pain of going up the stairs (typical for me, really, usually I just get on all fours like a dog) I was fine.
Fourteen hours later I had to run twenty miles. We were working around my work schedule so I had to do it today as my "medium long run." Two days off from work meant workout and medium long run. On Saturday I would do another 30 mile long run. To me this doesn't seem like days off. My running takes hours and then I am so tired from running I can't do anything but eat and be tired for hours afterward. And man was I tired, from step one, I knew this was going to be a long one.
I do not like the term medium long run to describe my run today. I call it really long run. Runs like last Saturday and next Saturday are really really really long runs and this one today was a really long run.
Every step seemed more tiring than the one before it. I'm really glad I don't have to go to work because I don't think I could stand for five hours to save my life but I wish I could do something fun with my day off too. Right now sleeping is the only thing that sounds fun.
Joel says this is why most people don't make it to being a great runner. I hope I make it.